Touch of Death Compromise

[LiquidShadow]

so maybe monks are pretty even with fighters and rangers, and maybe paladins, but not barbarians. Okay.

and they still complain about their dps. its funny how other classes dont complain about lack of improved evasion while fighters, paladins and barbarians have no evasion at all. why do everyone think that monks SHOULD be top dps and have improved evasion and super high ac comparing to other dps classes/builds (yea look at the barbarian now - do they have high AC? no thats why u shouldnt get super high dps imo).

Also, looking at what other classes lose isn't the best way to balance one class around content that generally denies abilities (undead and constructs), because someone isn't going into the Necropolis, or Delera's, or any number of other undead-heavy quests thinking, "Boy, I'm glad I don't lose as much as that guy in here," but rather likely thinking, "****, I can't use this, or this, or that ability in here." What Kensai spec'ed in khopeshes goes into a quest with a lot of skeletons and thinks, "Wow, it really sucks that I'm losing all of my special bonuses to attack and damage, but at least I'm not losing 80% of my damage like rogues do?"

+1 rep for this

[Mobeius]

You keep saying this. You said to me and now to sephiroth. Considering I dont see those words written in his posts. Why are you ignoring the multitude of other concerns that dark monks have brought up.
You seem to be disregarding any talk or damage numbers just you can bring this up again.

In the quote from me above that you linked you even cut out the parts where I talked about a large number dark monks having to re-roll their characters to meet the save DC of the new ToD.

Its nice when you can pick and choose one argument and disregard the others isnt it?
Too bad the dark monks that are out there can't disregard the other reasons that make this change bad for them.



There is only 1 kind of balance: both sides being equal. There no such thing as "perfect" or "uneven" balance.
The more people argue for balance the more likely it is that all classes will do the exact same against all the content in the game.



Give me the name of a ranged dps class in ddo that cant do anything except ranged dps, then maybe we can talk about the definition of "nothing else to make up for that".
Take rangers for instance, they get twf feats for free, and bow strength. Meaning they sue the SAME stat for Bow damage as they do for Melee combat. Making up for the weak ranged dps: use your melee weapons.

Corrected part of your statements, because its not monks in general.

[gurgar78]

You keep saying this. You said to me and now to sephiroth. Considering I dont see those words written in his posts. Why are you ignoring the multitude of other concerns that monks have brought up.
You seem to be disregarding any talk or damage numbers just you can bring this up again.

I apologize. I'm actually not trying to cherry pick arguments, but more trying to focus on what seems to be the underlying cause for concern as I see it.

To me, it seems like the bottom line you'll want to consider is how your monk stacks up against other classes, specifically because you don't want to be undervalued and therefore under-represented in groups.

What other concerns do you have? That you need to readjust your character because you ignored wisdom? I can see both sides of this. It REALLY sucks that a stat you previously had no reliance on has suddenly become important. However, it's never been made secret that wisdom is supposed to be an important stat for a monk and you ignored it specifically to exploit the fact that one super-ability didn't need it.

[gurgar78]

and they still complain about their dps. its funny how other classes dont complain about lack of improved evasion while fighters, paladins and barbarians have no evasion at all. why do everyone think that monks SHOULD be top dps and have improved evasion and super high ac comparing to other dps classes/builds (yea look at the barbarian now - do they have high AC? no thats why u shouldnt get super high dps imo).

Simple: Because while those other things are REALLY nice to have in 95% of content, when you make it to level 20 and do raids and epics, the only thing people care about is how fast you can make things dead.

[ZodacBKB]

Also, looking at what other classes lose isn't the best way to balance one class around content that generally denies abilities (undead and constructs), because someone isn't going into the Necropolis, or Delera's, or any number of other undead-heavy quests thinking, "Boy, I'm glad I don't lose as much as that guy in here," but rather likely thinking, "****, I can't use this, or this, or that ability in here." What Kensai spec'ed in khopeshes goes into a quest with a lot of skeletons and thinks, "Wow, it really sucks that I'm losing all of my special bonuses to attack and damage, but at least I'm not losing 80% of my damage like rogues do?"

Actually, I think like that, heh. Everytime I'm sad I can't crit the undead, I take a moment to pity rogues.

[SINIBYTE]

What other concerns do you have? That you need to readjust your character because you ignored wisdom? I can see both sides of this. It REALLY sucks that a stat you previously had no reliance on has suddenly become important. However, it's never been made secret that wisdom is supposed to be an important stat for a monk and you ignored it specifically to exploit the fact that one super-ability didn't need it.

It doesn't just affect those that ignored WIS. Please check my thread on stat distribution to see how this "change" renders GM Suns impossible if attempting to get a solid TOD DC.

[xxScoobyDooxx]

Is it possible for you to code it this way.

1. make the damage scale based on level - level 9 = 225dmg then add +25dmg per level
2. make it impossible to x4 x5 proc, but double and triple proc as it currently does.
3. have it as neg energy
4. remove the saving throw

This would solve all the issues I believe and achieve what the devs were trying to achieve.

It makes multiclass dark monks viable at end game
removes the overpowered at level 9 issue
removes the ridiculous massive damage that occasionally occurs
solves the untyped vs neg energy issues

This seems to be a logical compromise solution but back to my question to you sir, is it able to be coded this way as I understand that coding changes fall into many camps, easy, hard and not viable without massive rewrite.

[Goldenadult79]

What other concerns do you have? That you need to readjust your character because you ignored wisdom? I can see both sides of this. It REALLY sucks that a stat you previously had no reliance on has suddenly become important. However, it's never been made secret that wisdom is supposed to be an important stat for a monk and you ignored it specifically to exploit the fact that one super-ability didn't need it.

Super-ability? Did it occur to you that melee dps in this game is directly related to strength? That perhaps a Melee-Dps character might want to maximize that stat so all of his damage is higher and that its not just about 1 ability? I find it slightly insulting that you think all of this is about 1 ability.

I'm pretty sure I've seen you in the other threads where people talk about the new stat layouts for a new or LR'd monk. It's going to look, for me, something like this:

15
15
16
8
14
6

you'll notice that I can't use Gm Fire stance or GM air stance. Without a +3 tome or without Further reducing strength. I now have to put every level point into Wisdom. So I lose 9 strength, 4 from GM fire stance, and 5 from level ups. Even more strength if I want to GM wind stance. Thats a pretty significant loss of overall dps and to hit for that matter.
And all because of what? What was it again? We don't even have a justification from the devs. We sure have a lot of nonsense conjecture from the players though huh?

You can all say its all about "1 super-ability". But you better start looking at the bigger picture.

Edit: oh yeah, I just noticed also wont be able to get GM water stance.

[gurgar78]

It doesn't just affect those that ignored WIS. Please check my thread on stat distribution to see how this "change" renders GM Suns impossible if attempting to get a solid TOD DC.

Perhaps the devs want you to have to make that decision and the trade-off is intentional?

[Goldenadult79]

Perhaps the devs want you to have to make that decision and the trade-off is intentional?

Tell that to the halfling and drow race.

[BlackSteel]

and they still complain about their dps. its funny how other classes dont complain about lack of improved evasion while fighters, paladins and barbarians have no evasion at all. why do everyone think that monks SHOULD be top dps and have improved evasion and super high ac comparing to other dps classes/builds (yea look at the barbarian now - do they have high AC? no thats why u shouldnt get super high dps imo).



+1 rep for this

a monk gives up a good portion of their saves, and any hope of an AC build by pursueing more damage. ditto with the ToD DC. exceling at any one of these normally comes at the expense of one of the others.

getting a useful ToD number (and no, i do not count trash mobs, or even epic trash mobs into account for a useful number) will trash a characters to hit for most builds. If you're working with +4 tomes and multiple past lives, then just about anything can work. But a typical monk-> monk progression with +2's isnt the same.

noone is recommending for monks to be top DPS even when sacrificing for it. but maintaining a workable DC for bosses to compete with would be nice.

personally if I were to choose a nerf option:

1)(obviously) fix the 3x/5x bug
2) have it negative energy damage
3) no save DC

We're not a caster, we already have to hit the monster to start with. And monks already dont have the best to hit. We're a swiss army knife when it comes to killing trash mobs, a DC here is pointlessly easy to acheive for an ability thats not even necessary. For bosses we have absurdley short reach and have to be able to hit their AC; making them have to fail a saving throw on an overinflated save is overkill.

try building a monk that can hit epic DQ on a 2, while chasing her, and still have a good shot at landing their ToD if it has a DC to it. Now you can up your DC, but your to hit suffers, so u're not hitting her at all that way, DC or not. Chances are, you're not using power attack, and you have to hit her with improved destruction beforehand as well.

the option to debuff the monster first to get more damage out of a ToD would be nice IF it worked on raid bosses. anything else you're better off just using ToD straight out, as the monster is not going to make it around to the next cooldown. About the only place the debuff might see some use is on epic named monsters whose name doesnt start with velah or the demon queen.

[BlackSteel]

Super-ability? Did it occur to you that melee dps in this game is directly related to strength? That perhaps a Melee-Dps character might want to maximize that stat so all of his damage is higher and that its not just about 1 ability? I find it slightly insulting that you think all of this is about 1 ability.

hey on the bright side you can go max str on a light monk, buff the party and use some pretty awesome handwraps on devil bosses, and pick up void 4 easily.

[SINIBYTE]

Perhaps the devs want you to have to make that decision and the trade-off is intentional?

Or perhaps they didn't realise adding the save would make a MAD character that much MADder?

What's the trade off?

A. Lower your damage by covering the DC?
Or
B. Lower your damage by ignoring the DC?

[LiquidShadow]

Simple: Because while those other things are REALLY nice to have in 95% of content, when you make it to level 20 and do raids and epics, the only thing people care about is how fast you can make things dead.

well yea this explains why its hard to do epic quests if u are paladin. guess we all have to make barbarians and 1 healer/arcane alt. then we will be happy

[BlackSteel]

Or perhaps they didn't realise adding the save would make a MAD character that much MADder?

What's the trade off?

A. Lower your damage by covering the DC?
Or
B. Lower your damage by ignoring the DC?

well you might as well ignore it, as getting the DC high enough for when it counts is pretty much shooting yourself in the face in regards to everything else; all for a 'chance' for it to land.

I've still yet to see someone post the fort save on hard/elite horoth. Obviously cause we all know that stealing kills with ToD on epic hobgoblins in von 1 is what its all about; and not about trying to maintain a useful ability in actual meaningful fights (not ones that you've already won, or could solo if so inclined)

[BlackSteel]

well yea this explains why its hard to do epic quests if u are paladin. guess we all have to make barbarians and 1 healer/arcane alt. then we will be happy

really? cause I was under the impression that smiting autocrit mobs was pretty bad***

[Goldenadult79]

hey on the bright side you can go max str on a light monk, buff the party and use some pretty awesome handwraps on devil bosses, and pick up void 4 easily.

At this point, thats the real trade off. Light or dark. I'd have to trade 3 feats and LR or just TR and do a light monk properly from the start.

That's a hell of a decision to be faced with just because of a DC thats been added to 1 ability lol

[Tigarian]

That's not the part that I said was a neutral change.

I said that I considered the change from untyped to negative energy mostly neutral, since the number of opponents it will no longer work on aren't super-abundant, and on every other opponent (except for powerful fiends) it had a combo that could potentially increase its damage. If you're not fighting a construct or undead, then the damage type change is almost always irrelevant.

From your response here and elsewhere it is evident that these changes are balance related and the flavor component is purely secondary. I'm not seeing much in the way of quantifiable evidence that a balance change is warranted or unwarranted by either side of the discussion. Most of the people in these ToD discussion threads are translating their experience as users (dark monks) and observers (party members) of the ability into an opinion on balance. Balance is a murky subject but I do believe a component of balance has to be the community's feeling as a whole. I do not want an ability of my character to invalidate or ruin the play experience of another group of players. Likewise, I would not want a balance change to completely invalidate a group of player builds even if it helps me compete in game with my class. In this case community perception of balance is inherently flawed because of a bug allowing quadruple and quintuple ToD effects. I suspect this bug also inflates the documented rate of double or triple effects (wind stance) versus expected single effects.

Even with the tools I would assume you as a developer have access to, I do not believe it makes sense to attempt a balance change on an ability that is bugged so heavily toward the over-powered side. I simply don't think a test server exposes the ability to enough experience to gauge balance. I think the most sensible change for Update 7 is to fix the clearly over-powering bug and give the community as a whole a chance to experience touch of death that is working according to Update 5 documentation. An end game balance change may be warranted but there are far to many people affected by this change not to give it due process.

As many dark monks have already mentioned, there is a balance issue but it has to do with scaling of damage per level not damage at end game. The issue with even a single ToD effect at level 9 is that it prevents other party members from contributing at all to many boss fights in that level of content. The quadruple and quintuple ToD effects extend the one-shot boss effect into higher level content than it would otherwise. If I were to make a balance change effective in Update 7 it would be to scale ToD based on character level so that only at level 20 did ToD effects hit for 500 while leaving leaving double and triple (wind stance) effects alone. By making it character level we spare our multi-class friends from undue harm.

Lastly, if an end game balance change must happen in Update 7 I'd rather see negative energy damage type and rather than a fort save a lowering of ToD effect of 500 to something seen as reasonable while retaining the double and triple effect chance so wind stance and two weapon feats are not impacted as much as a secondary effect of the balance change. This method would also put multi-class and single class ToD users in the same boat balance wise. I'll say again that personally I think making an end game balance change could only be accurately evaluated with a non-bugged version of ToD after Update 7.

[sephiroth1084]

I still disagree that it brings them even with other classes. Monks get effects on handwraps, in addition, they can boost their damage with elemental strikes. If something happens to be immune to fire, lightning and frost, they still have earth damage attacks they can cycle.

I'm not running the math on this--someone who has better calc-fu can embark on that bit of fun--but my point about losing stuff still stands: sure, monks still have their Earth strikes, if they bothered with Earth stance, but not everyone does, and if they did, they end up with very little to do during combat: Earth IV, Earth III, wait for cooldowns to expire. That's pretty dull, and is clearly a loss for dark monks.

But anyway, it seems this concern with people passing over monks because they can't use ToD against undead and constructs seems unfounded. Anyone that would pass over a monk because ToD won't land on that undead boss that monks do fantastic damage on anyway... is an idiot.

I'm not crying that I'm going to ditch my monk, though with the Shintao revision, I think I may drop dark for light and give that a try, though I anticipate going back to dark for several reasons.

and they still complain about their dps. its funny how other classes dont complain about lack of improved evasion while fighters, paladins and barbarians have no evasion at all. why do everyone think that monks SHOULD be top dps and have improved evasion and super high ac comparing to other dps classes/builds (yea look at the barbarian now - do they have high AC? no thats why u shouldnt get super high dps imo).

Well, you probably aren't getting a high DC on ToD, high DPS and high AC (or even necessarily high DPS and high AC for that matter), as monks are very MAD. And Evasion is clearly a big concern for many people, as the 2-monk or 2-rogue splash is very prevalent.

Actually, I think like that, heh. Everytime I'm sad I can't crit the undead, I take a moment to pity rogues.

I have a rogue, and I tend to avoid undead-heavy content on her, but I can't recall ever having thought like that on one of my other toons.

Anyway, my overarching point is that, while dark monks continue to function well (better than some) against undead, they still lose a lot, and that Eladrin's comments don't reflect the actual effects of the changes accurately. The change of ToD to negative energy exacerbates this when dealing with monsters that are already immune to most of the class features of dark monks.

Adding a save to ToD weakens it significantly in the encounters where it is most needed (boss fights). Maybe it needed to get weakened, fine, but the comment that it can be boosted with the triple dark finisher is misleading, since most of the stuff we'd want to bother debuffing to boost ToD's damage will make their Fort save all the time vs. all but the most Wis-centric monks (and maybe them as well).

Personally, I'd prefer ToD have its damage lowered a bit then also make half of that damage untyped, while the other half is negative energy. Leave the save on this, but remove the save on the triple dark finisher, or at least on part of it. Have the save apply only to the fortification reduction portion.

[BlackSteel]

From your response here and elsewhere it is evident that these changes are balance related and the flavor component is purely secondary. I'm not seeing much in the way of quantifiable evidence that a balance change is warranted or unwarranted by either side of the discussion. Most of the people in these ToD discussion threads are translating their experience as users (dark monks) and observers (party members) of the ability into an opinion on balance. Balance is a murky subject but I do believe a component of balance has to be the community's feeling as a whole. I do not want an ability of my character to invalidate or ruin the play experience of another group of players. Likewise, I would not want a balance change to completely invalidate a group of player builds even if it helps me compete in game with my class. In this case community perception of balance is inherently flawed because of a bug allowing quadruple and quintuple ToD effects. I suspect this bug also inflates the documented rate of double or triple effects (wind stance) versus expected single effects.

Even with the tools I would assume you as a developer have access to, I do not believe it makes sense to attempt a balance change on an ability that is bugged so heavily toward the over-powered side. I simply don't think a test server exposes the ability to enough experience to gauge balance. I think the most sensible change for Update 7 is to fix the clearly over-powering bug and give the community as a whole a chance to experience touch of death that is working according to Update 5 documentation. An end game balance change may be warranted but there are far to many people affected by this change not to give it due process.

As many dark monks have already mentioned, there is a balance issue but it has to do with scaling of damage per level not damage at end game. The issue with even a single ToD effect at level 9 is that it prevents other party members from contributing at all to many boss fights in that level of content. The quadruple and quintuple ToD effects extend the one-shot boss effect into higher level content than it would otherwise. If I were to make a balance change effective in Update 7 it would be to scale ToD based on character level so that only at level 20 did ToD effects hit for 500 while leaving leaving double and triple (wind stance) effects alone. By making it character level we spare our multi-class friends from undue harm.

Lastly, if an end game balance change must happen in Update 7 I'd rather see negative energy damage type and rather than a fort save a lowering of ToD effect of 500 to something seen as reasonable while retaining the double and triple effect chance so wind stance and two weapon feats are not impacted as much as a secondary effect of the balance change. This method would also put multi-class and single class ToD users in the same boat balance wise. I'll say again that personally I think making an end game balance change could only be accurately evaluated with a non-bugged version of ToD after Update 7.

+1 nice post